


rising upside down

by powerandpathos



Category: 19天 - Old先 | 19 Days - Old Xian
Genre: Angst, M/M, Non-Consensual Kissing, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-22
Updated: 2017-10-28
Packaged: 2018-12-18 17:50:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 15,798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11879688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/powerandpathos/pseuds/powerandpathos
Summary: Jian Yi disappears on the second day of high school. How does He Tian tell Guan Shan that he's going too?





	1. beginning

**Author's Note:**

> inspiration: [this song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJkVV0tPYe4), [artwork i commissioned by robnemmon](http://robnemmon.tumblr.com/post/164220589172/commission-for-agapaic-much-love-bethan), a recent conversation with [19daysruinedmylife](https://19daysruinedmylife.tumblr.com/).

‘Let’s stop a second,’ He Tian says.

They stop.

Guan Shan pulls his hand from He Tian’s back pocket, stands still and silent as He Tian perches on the ledge of a shop window front. Signs glow neon around them, muted in the early autumn chill. There’s a glimmer of pink dawn beyond, stars shining frail and pallid above. The city will be rising around them soon, but for now it’s them.

Just the two of them.

He Tian’s hair is mussed. He put his glasses on after they fucked, contacts left in the bathroom. They make him seem older, more serious, heavy brows and dark eyes framed by neat rims. Guan Shan is wringing the neck of an empty water bottle between his hands, plastic crackling.

There was something different about that night—something slower about the way their hips had joined; something softer about the way He Tian pressed his lips to Guan Shan’s throat; something careful about He Tian’s after-touches when he came behind him in the shower, stood against his back, held him.

‘If you’ve got something to say then say it,’ Guan Shan says. It’s too cold to stop for long. There’s a lump in his throat he can’t explain. He has the same feeling on his skin as when he’d followed She Li from his home and down the street. Months ago, now.

‘Right,’ says He Tian. ‘Sure.’ He lights a cigarette.

‘Spit it,’ says Guan Shan, ‘the fuck out.’

A bloom of cigarette smoke. ‘Tomorrow. I won’t be coming into school.’

‘Is that all?’ Guan Shan snorts. ‘Second day of high school and you’re already skipping. Typical.’

‘Yeah?’ says He Tian. ‘What’s that supposed to mean.’

‘Means that of course you’d get a free pass to skip. You’re… you’re fucking _you_. I’d get detention and cleaning duty for three weeks.’

He Tian’s lips quirk; Guan Shan’s fist tightens around the bottle. He folds his arms.

He Tian’s giving him a look like he’s waiting, and Guan Shan’s mind is racing to catch up. He isn’t that smart—isn’t that clever. He Tian always leaves too many gaps for him to try to fill.

Guan Shan should be charmed, maybe. It means that He Tian overestimates him, expects more from Guan Shan than he’s able to give. With most, they tend to expect the opposite.

‘You’re not coming into school tomorrow,’ Guan Shan says carefully, watching him. ‘And what about the day after that?’

He Tian looks at the ground where his legs are stretched out in front of him, crossed at the ankles. He makes a sound like a sigh, flicks ash onto the tarmac. His shoulders rise—fall.

It happens in a number of seconds. It’s all carefully cultivated, carried out with a sense of grace. Choreographed, almost. Guan Shan watches it happen in a distant sort of haze, like he’s beyond himself—above. Like he’s the pinkish dawn or the pallid stars.

When he realises, he wishes he were that distant. He wishes he were detached. Not standing in front of He Tian with a mess of plastic in his hands and his body shaking like it’s ready to tear itself apart with a nudge.

He says, ‘You’re leaving.’

‘I can’t tell you anything.’

‘But you’re leaving, yeah?’

He Tian runs a hand through his hair, shifts. Resignation runs along his shoulders, curves them rounded and hunched. Guan Shan wants to cry.

‘What,’ Guan Shan says, hates how thick his voice sounds. The scorn, that white-hot fury, is missing. He’s an animal de-fanged; an almost-adult reduced to a child. ‘You lost interest? I bored you already? A couple months. A few fucks. _That_ was fast.’

He Tian’s already shaking his head. He grinds the cigarette beneath his shoe. ‘You don’t understand. It’s nothing to do with you.’

‘Yeah, sure,’ Guan Shan says. He swallows. ‘When’re you back? Days? Weeks?’

_Months?_

‘I don’t know,’ says He Tian. ‘It’s not my choice.’

_Years._

‘That’s bullshit,’ Guan Shan spits. He stumbles over the rest of it: ‘It’s not my _—_ Are you kidding—That’s _bullshit._ ’

In the silence, He Tian just shrugs. The autumn air is chill; their muted breaths curl out like fog from their mouths. He Tian lights another cigarette, hand in his pocket, the small orange glow like a traffic light of amber warning.

_Slow down. You’re going too fast. If you don’t stop now you’ll hit something and ruin—_

‘The others,’ Guan Shan says. ‘They know? Was I a fucking afterthought?’

He Tian looks at him through a haze of smoke. It’s a wonder his eyes aren’t red-rimmed and watering. Guan Shan brushes the back of his hand across his face. His mom told him his dad used to cry easy too. A grown man sobbing. Natural reaction. Something from the inside that leaks out when it can’t help itself. A bottle overflowing, spilling on asphalt.

He Tian won’t see it like that. He tastes salt tracks like weakness. But he says nothing as Guan Shan swallows, ignores the stinging, the lump, the building nausea.  

‘Zhengxi doesn’t know,’ He Tian says eventually. ‘Jian Yi…’

He leaves it hanging, looks at Guan Shan like he should understand the silence. Like he should know how to figure out what the nothingness means. How can he tell He Tian that they’re not all like him? That he isn’t like him, never has been, _doesn’t want_ to be?

‘I want honesty,’ Guan Shan says. ‘That’s all I want. I want you to tell me what the fuck is going on for once.’

‘I can’t, it’s not—’

‘Just _try—’_

He Tian pushes to his feet in a blur. ‘It’s not my _choice_ , Guan Shan! It’s not my _decision_. It’s been made for me. _It always has been_. _’_

‘ _Since when!’_ Guan Shan shouts back. ‘Since when the fuck have you ever not done what you _wanted?_ You’re such a fucking _liar!’_

In a second, someone’s going to slide open their window, lean out one of the balconies above the shop fronts. Shout down to them to be quiet. That people are sleeping. And Guan Shan knows He Tian will stick a middle finger up at them, and Guan Shan will tell them to piss off back to bed and not stick their noses in other people’s business.

Guan Shan imagines it. Sees it so clearly. Because that’s how they worked, the two of them, in their little unit of volatile predictability. Their imperfect duo of anger and bitterness and two broken pieces trying to fit together.

But it was perfect because they could, in the least, ignore that they were imperfect—when they could look at each other and know that neither of them were anything more. Alone, there was a mirror, and a reflection, and a single fragment staring itself in the fucking face. Broken edges and chipped surfaces, scars and bruises all on show. Guan Shan doesn't want to have to look at himself again. He doesn't want that lonely ruin again, amber traffic light ignored. Scarred where he’s hurtled through red at break-neck speed.

He Tian has his hands on Guan Shan’s shoulders. ‘This isn’t what I wanted,’ He Tian tells him. He has to stoop slightly to look him in the eyes, and Guan Shan can hardly bear to look back at him. ‘What I wanted was you. That’s all I wanted. I wanted _tonight_ and _you_ , and just that for a thousand nights, alright? You’re the only choice I’ve ever made and I can’t keep it. I don’t get to make my own decisions. People like me—we don’t get that.’

Guan Shan turns his face away. ‘People like—’ He breaks off. Mutters, ‘What the fuck are you—’

‘You know what I’m saying,’ He Tian cuts in. ‘You’ve seen where I live. You’ve seen my brother. What kind of shit he does. You _know_ , Guan Shan. You think you’re not smart, but you see things—’

‘Bullshit—’

‘You saw through me, didn’t you?’ His smile is indescribable, and doesn’t reach his eyes. ‘Always saw everything about me that I wanted to hide.’

‘Because you didn’t try to.’

Guan Shan remembers the last few weeks of middle school. The basketball court outside his apartment block, He Tian’s hot breath on his neck, the heavy weight of him that didn’t hurt. It was grounding. He’d hated it for only three seconds.

‘Because I…’ He Tian steps away, resigned. His hands fall limp to his sides. ‘Because I couldn’t, and because if I wanted to let my barriers down with anyone it was you. I wanted you to know me. And I couldn’t—didn’t have the strength around you. You drove me fucking insane.’

‘You felt weak,’ Guan Shan guesses, sounding hollow. The punches, the throwaway hits in the beginning. How many of those had been because He Tian wanted Guan Shan to see him strong? To know what that strength felt like when it grew bruises on his skin like a bed of violets.

He Tian has his lighter in his hands. It spins, a blur of lighter fluid and the flash of metal. There are no more stars now, and the air is warmer. Guan Shan can hear cars sputtering to life and the electric hum of shop signs and outdoor restaurant generators whirring. It’s better than the silence, he supposes. Better than the static in his head that says _this is it._ This is as good as it gets. This is all.

‘I should’ve fucking known this was a goodbye.’

‘Guan Shan…’

‘You said I saw things.’ He laughs, a bark of sound. ‘Should’ve seen this. Would’ve saved you the trouble of tonight.’

He Tian’s frowning. ‘It wasn’t a pity fuck.’

‘Sure feels like one now.’

‘Guan Shan—’

‘Is this it then?’ Guan Shan asks. ‘We just… You were gonna walk me home. Clap me on the back. Give me a kiss on the mouth.’

‘What else do you want?’

Another laugh, this one hollower than the last. It almost hurts. Almost feels like the burning graze of a cough, of lungs filled with smoke. It takes an effort to push it out, to revert to the instinct that says he’s not afraid.

He’s terrified.

‘What else?’ Guan Shan echoes. ‘Well, I dunno. A call might be nice. Once in a while.’

‘I can’t. No contact. That’s part of the rules.’

‘The rules. Right, ‘course. You can’t. Sure.’

He Tian rubs his fingertips into his eye sockets, glasses shifting over his face. When he drops them, his eyes are red-rimmed, and his lip has been bitten to swollenness between his teeth. Guan Shan hadn’t even seen.

 _I didn’t have the strength around you_ , he’d said _._ Guan Shan doesn’t remember thinking for a single moment that he was weak. Arrogant, sometimes. Angry in a cold way. Cruel in a stupid, thoughtless way. Ignorant to others. To Guan Shan, often. Didn’t talk enough. Didn’t just _say_ enough. Didn’t let himself be weak enough.

‘And we’ll see each other again?’ Guan Shan says. ‘When you’re back.’

 _When?_ he thinks to himself a second later. Too hopeful. Too presumptuous.

‘Maybe we will. Maybe we won’t.’

‘No,’ says Guan Shan. ‘That’s not fair. You can’t give me a—a false hope like that. It’s all or nothing. That’s how it’s always been with us. That’s all I want. Don’t leave me hanging.’ He says, ‘Don’t leave me waiting.’

He Tian tries to make himself look cruel. He narrows his eyes, twists his lips into a mockery of a smile. It’s the kind of look he would have given Guan Shan in the beginning, before the interest had been piqued. Before he cared and before Guan Shan mattered. Before the insanity had started to set in. Before he asked for _just a moment._

‘We both know,’ he says, wry, ‘that you’ll be waiting whether I tell you to or not.’

‘You’re a cunt,’ Guan Shan tells him.

But there’s barely any anger there—it’s a throwaway insult, bubbles from him almost hysterically. The self-fashioned cruelty in He Tian is false, a fake. It’s not a blessing now that Guan Shan has come to tell the difference.

He would have preferred the whole thing to hurt for real. Would’ve preferred to know that He Tian’s indomitable and invincible and stronger than Guan Shan. To know that only one of them hurts. That only one of them is going to be looking in the mirror and seeing a broken thing. To know that he has a standard by which to set himself against.

He Tian says, ‘Yeah, I know.’

Guan Shan laughs for real this time. What else is he supposed to do? He doesn’t want to be like his dad, sobbing; he doesn’t want to follow in failed footsteps.

He Tian’s wary as Guan Shan slips his hand back into He Tian’s back pocket, and something small and unnameable passes Guan Shan’s lips when He Tian’s arm hooks around his shoulder, heavy and warm and familiar. He smells of his body wash, dark and woodsy, menthol cigarettes on his breath, and Guan Shan breathes in like he can commit the smell to synapses.

He breathes slow, and takes in everything: the sound of their footsteps in the middle of the road, the muted creak of the water bottle, birdsong rising in a waking city, purring telephone wires along the streets. The nervous blink of neon billboards and OPEN signs.

And He Tian’s smile—quiet, slow, regretful—like he’s trying to remember everything too.     


	2. middle

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one just kept growing. You guys probably understand my relationship with angst by now.
> 
> Recommended listening: XXTENTACION's "17" album, "Barely Friends" by Drama Duo, "Find What You're Looking For" by Olivia O'Brien, "Icarus" by Midnight, and anything by The Japanese House.
> 
> [I'm on Tumblr.](http://agapaic.tumblr.com/)

_Don’t be like me, kid. Don’t turn out like me. Don’t fall in love._

Guan Shan had frowned at that last one, puzzled, not understanding. _Mom?_ he’d asked. _Mom put you here?_

And his dad laughed, sad and low. Shook his head. _Nah, kid. Nah, your mom is… Be good to her. Look after her for me. But don’t fall in love. They’ll wreck you for it._

 

* * *

 

 

Two years. The second year of high school, and Guan Shan’s fifth mistake in as many months.

It was rush hour, the subway unbearable, Guan Shan’s school shirt sticking to his back. He breathed through his mouth, and it got caught on the exhale as the crowds shifted, and he had a sudden direct line of sight to the end of the carriage. His eyes swallowed the sight of them whole: a dark head. Broad shoulders. An arrogant lean against the doors of the train carriage, leather jacket, rucksack slung over a shoulder. Earphones in.

Guan Shan didn’t remember getting out of his seat. His bag was already smacking against his shoulder blades as he pushed through the swarm of kids in school uniforms and men and women in suits, briefcases and rucksacks barring his way, someone’s bike wheel bruising his shin, a suitcase to shove out the way.

Too soon, the train was lurching, a sway of bodies, and the doors slid opened. A voice monotone over the speakers. Guan Shan looked around wildly.

Was this—? It wasn’t his stop. Three left. He looked back.

They were leaving. Slipping through the doors, dark frame heading down the underground platform. Guan Shan had to get off.

His heart was in his throat as he pushed his way through, barely making it onto the platform before the doors shut and the train slid away down the tunnel. Absently, he knew he’d be home late tonight—would have to come up with some fucking excuse that would light worry in his mom’s eyes, a low-burning flame because of him that never really went out.

He was aware of his skin, suddenly feverish and laying heavily against his bones, some suit that didn’t fit him, that felt out of place. His feet carried him down the platform, up the narrow set of stairs onto the sun-baked street, tripping over himself as his head moved about erratically.

Guan Shan saw them again, yards away and walking fast. He started running.

He weathered the curses thrown at him as he pushed past, lurching through, shoulder-shoves he would have fought over once, no apology on his lips—and then they were in reaching distance, and Guan Shan had a hand out, a fistful of PVC leather, a body spun around and—

It wasn’t him.

The eyes were lighter. Skin too pale. A wrong mouth. The long nose, that severe jawline Guan Shan traced with an uncertain fingertip, the throat that Guan Shan had pressed his mouth to a thousand times two summers ago and—

_It wasn’t him._

‘The fuck, man?’ the guy said, tugging out an earbud. His voice wasn’t low and grazed with cigarette smoke. There was no lazy look of derision. Amused superiority. No spark of fondness that Guan Shan knew had only ever been reserved for him. Just irritation. A foreign look. They were strangers to one another.

‘Thought you—thought you were someone else,’ Guan Shan muttered. And then, because he was supposed to, ‘Sorry, I… got it… wrong.’

‘Whatever,’ the guy threw out, shrugging off Guan Shan’s hold. Guan Shan let go of the jacket, stepped back as they tugged it back in place and readjusted their loose earphone with a dark look, and started heading back down the street.

Guan Shan stood still, hands limp at his side, end-of-workday traffic and pedestrians swarming around him. He noticed then that the guy had been the same height as himself, while He Tian was taller; He Tian would never have cut his hair like that. He Tian never took the subway except for when he was with Guan Shan. And He Tian would be seventeen now, nearly eighteen. Taller, broader. Older. More severe.

Impossible to imagine, for two reasons: impossible that He Tian would now be possibly more than how he’d looked from that last night—neon signs and a pink dawn and birdsong at 5am, mussed hair and dark square-rimmed glasses. That smile.

Impossible that Guan Shan could have mistaken some stranger—less, in every way—for him.

Guan Shan ran his hands through his hair, close-cropped, like always. Let out a whoosh of breath that rattled its way through his lungs.

Two years.

He was still desperate. Still hoping.

Fucking idiot.

 

* * *

 

 

**To: Zhan Zhengxi | Sent 18:54**

thought i saw him on the street

5th time in 5mnths..

 

**From: Zhan Zhengxi | Received 18:55**

I haven’t stopped doing that either. Don’t know if it’s better or worse that there aren’t that many guys with blond hair in China…

 

**To: Zhan Zhengxi | Sent 18:57**

better bc it dsnt happen as often

worse bc the chance it could be jy is 10x better(worse?)

 

**From: Zhan Zhengxi | Received 19:30**

Maybe.

 

**From: Zhan Zhengxi | Received 03:21**

Question: If He Tian came back now, and turned up at your door, would you let him back in?

No questions asked?

 

**To: Zhan Zhengxi | Sent 03:42**

when he left he said he knew id wait for him w/o him even asking – if he told me to or not

 

**From: Zhan Zhengxi | Received 03:45**

…

Is that a yes?

 

**To: Zhan Zhengxi | Sent 03:50**

answer: wtf do u think

 

* * *

 

 

 _They’ll wreck you for it._ They. Not a person. Not a group or an organisation. That wasn’t who Guan Shan’s father had been talking about. Years of research and internet searches and newspaper clippings told Guan Shan there could have been a ‘they’, some back-alley gang with a sordid reputation. Men with dog-tags and too many tattoos and tobacco-stained teeth.

He had to remember that his dad had gone to prison for a reason.

But they, whoever they had been—however they’d fucked his dad over—were not the they that Guan Shan’s dad had been talking about from behind a visitor screen. The plastic had been scratched and cracked and marked with oily fingertip smears. Guan Shan’s dad held a grimy teal phone in his hand, clutched in a white-knuckled grip.

A month in and his dad had already looked older, lines in his face, hair buzzcut short, a cut on his cheek half-healed that would scar.

He’d never been the philosophical type. He didn’t expend words more than they were needed, used them like a finite resource he didn’t have the money to buy more of. He valued quietness, and hard work, and a kind of sharp determination that stung. Guan Shan knew what that determination was like—he’d shaped himself in it, grown up in it, made a home out of it before he had made a home of something else. Out of someone else.

The door to his bedroom opened, halting the familiar route his thoughts were about to take, light leaking through the crack. The shadow of his mother blocked out the hallway light.

‘Are you asleep?’ she whispered.

Guan Shan pressed his cheek further into the pillow, fisted the sheets around his chest.

‘Can’t,’ he said, voice gravelly.

She shut the door behind her. Darkness fell again, the light of his Xbox blinking, his phone discordantly flashing with group messages he’d been ignoring from people he didn’t care about talking about things he didn’t give a shit about. Billboard signs glowed behind the thin veil of his curtains. Another night of not-quite-darkness.

He Tian had had blackout blinds in his apartment. Guan Shan’d never slept better anywhere but there; he hadn’t had a night uninterrupted by light and electricity since him. He remembered waking up to nothingness, having to scrabble for a light switch, blinking at He Tian in dim lamplight. He was sitting up and leaning against the wall—no headboard—with a lit cigarette and a dark smile, torso bare, while Guan Shan slept in his usually un-slept-in sheets.

‘Not sleeping?’ he’d asked.

‘You know me.’

Guan Shan did. He’d watched him blearily, the cherry of his cigarette stubbed out, fading in and out of sleep, until He Tian’s eventual movements from the bed dragged him into wakefulness.

‘Let’s go,’ He Tian’d said. ‘I need to walk.’

A glance at the clock. A groan. ‘Fuck, it’s four in the morning.’

‘Let’s go.’

They went.

Now, his mom’s slippers scuffed lightly on the hardwood floor. The bed sank slightly beneath her weight. He could smell her perfume, light and floral, and the underlying scent of disinfectant from the hospital.

‘Okay?’ she said, low. ‘Nervous about tomorrow?’

The start of his third and final year of high school. He’d forgotten. ‘Hngh.’

‘Convincing,’ she remarked.

He said nothing. Her sigh was heavy, and Guan Shan felt it shake him.

He knew her silences well—uncertain and thick with a nervous sort of energy. So used to her husband’s quietness. So used to Guan Shan’s irascibility, his snappishness. An anger like putting a hand on a hot stove.

‘It’s not you,’ he muttered.

‘What’s going on with you?’ she murmured, hand on his shoulder. ‘You know I’d never normally ask.’

He shrugged her off. ‘Nothing’s going on.’

‘I don’t like you lying to me.’

Guan Shan said, ‘I don’t like you worrying about me.’

‘I care about you and love you. If I don’t worry about you, who will?’

‘Fuck’s sake,’ he muttered, throwing off the sheets, sitting up until he could wind his arms around drawn-up knees. It was stuffy in his room, summer again pressing close on the city, no aircon in their tiny apartment. Too hot for this kind of talk. Too much like the way the night had felt when He Tian left, some endless memory on repeat—warmth on Guan Shan’s bare shoulders, a heavy arm like a blanket, the quietness of the streets, electricity charged and humming through power lines.

Guan Shan ran his hands through his hair. It was getting longer, but not enough to grab a fistful. Not enough for it to sting.

‘Shan Shan—’

‘I said I was fine, Mom. Can we just--not.’ He said, ‘Please.’

His mom’s back was straight. She kept her hands folded in her lap, kept her gaze steady on the door. ‘There was a time,’ she said, ‘at the end of middle school. Things seemed different for you. Better. Since your dad—’

‘ _Don’t_ talk about him. Just don’t.’

She carried on: ‘When he left I thought that was it. You were so unhappy and angry and, for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out where I’d gone so wrong.’

Guan Shan balled his sheets in curled fists, bitten fingernails pressing into his palms. He hated when she talked like this—self-deprecating and doubtful, thoughts said aloud. Fuck, couldn’t she see this was all him?

‘You didn’t,’ he muttered. His heart pounded in his chest. He felt it sourly in his throat. ‘Unless you think I’m wrong.’

‘Never.’

‘Then—’

‘You got better, Shan Shan. You were happy. I thought maybe it had been your age. That you’d had enough time. That your friends had brought you out of that shell you were in. And then high school started, and this whole time you’ve been… You’ve been…’

‘What,’ Guan Shan said. ‘What have I _been_.’

‘Is that boy—She Li—is he bothering you again?’

Guan Shan glared. ‘This has nothing to do with him—’

‘I remember when He Tian would come over and—’

‘Don’t _talk_ about him, Mom—’

She got to her feet, a dark silhouette in his room. He could feel her stare on him, worried and confused and angry. Because that anger had never been his father’s, and it hadn’t entirely been his own. If Guan Shan was a bonfire, his mother had put in him the kindling.

‘ _Don’t_ talk about your father,’ she reeled off. ‘ _Don’t_ talk about He Tian. Can I talk about _anyone_? Can I even talk to _you?’_

Guan Shan’s face screwed up. ‘Why would you want to? If I’m such a disappointment to you.’

‘Dis—’ She sucked in a breath, let it whistle through her teeth. _‘Why_ do you say things like this? Do you realise how _hurtful_ they are for me to hear?’ Suddenly, she put her head in her hands, small shoulders rounded and hunched.

Seconds ticked by, still and quiet. This was stifling. Guan Shan wanted to get out; he wanted her to leave. Maybe this was how He Tian used to feel, irritable and restless and forever awake. _Let’s_ _go_ , he used to say. A hand held out, palm up, for Guan Shan to take. Why couldn’t he be here and offer Guan Shan that now? Why the fuck wasn’t he offering the escape when Guan Shan _needed_ it?

‘You don’t eat,’ his mom whispered. ‘You barely sleep. Don’t tell me your eyes are always red from smoking, because I know you hate it, and you’re just like him sometimes so I _know_ when you’ve been crying.’

Guan Shan gritted his teeth. If she brought up his dad one more time…

‘I’m trying,’ he pushed out. ‘I swear to fuck I am _trying—’_

‘What’s happened?’ she asked. Jumped in like she couldn’t help herself. Like Guan Shan had offered a line and if she didn’t take it now she’d never get it again. ‘Just tell me what happened.’

He could feel something closing in on him. ‘I don’t know, I can’t explain it, I just—’

‘You just what?’

Guan Shan rubbed at the pressure at his temples. ‘I just—I miss him, Mom,’ he blurted out. ‘Fuck, I hate it but I miss him and—’

‘Who? Who do you—’

 _‘He Tian_. It's—Mom, I miss He Tian.’

He could feel her confusion. He didn’t know what she thought he’d say. Whose name he would pluck out when he hadn’t had friends over since middle school. When he only saw Zhan Zhengxi a handful of times at school. Saw She Li where people didn’t see.

He didn’t know what could be running in her head, to hear him say those words, to talk with an honesty that felt like he’d been flayed, flesh and muscle laid bare and skin in ribbons. Everything pinkish and raw.

Shouldn’t he have healed by now?

‘He Tian?’ she said, after a moment. ‘But I thought—I knew you were friends for a time but you barely—I thought you hardly knew him.’

‘No, I know him. I knew him, Mom.’ _Shit_. ‘I thought I knew him, I—’

‘I understand.’

‘I can’t fucking— _begin_ to explain—’

‘You don’t need to,’ she said, and Guan Shan looked at her. ‘I understand.’

‘No, you don’t—’ _You can’t._

‘I really do,’ she interrupted.

‘How could you—’

‘Because he used to talk to me. When he was here. About you. Asked so many questions about you. About your dad. About me.’ Her gaze softened. ‘Sometimes,’ she said softly, ‘there are notes through the door. You’re asleep or out. They come just before my shifts start.’

Guan Shan was still. ‘What do they say?’

‘It doesn’t matter. But sometimes there’s money.’

‘Money,’ Guan Shan said. Flat.

‘In my account. I’ve tried to trace the transfer. But the bank said it’s offshore and…’ Her eyes flashed. ‘We know who it is, Guan Shan.’

‘Burn it.’

She looked at him, startled. ‘Burn—’

‘Withdraw the cash and burn it,’ he said coldly, and then, face screwing up, spitting: ‘We don’t need his _charity_. We don’t need anything _from_ him. He _left_.’

His mom said, ‘He left you.’

Guan Shan felt himself still at those words—thoughts on repeat, a companion for the past two years, now said on someone else’s tongue, his mother’s tongue—while something thrashed on the inside, his body a cage that the unseen part of himself could throw itself against until he punctured his lungs on splintered ribs.

‘He left me,’ he echoed, a dull agreement. _I’m not kidding myself,_ it said. _I know my worth._

‘Because of an argument?’ his mom asked. She was moving again, settling herself back down on the space she’d left on his bed. She didn’t stare at the door this time: she twisted herself until they were facing each other. Guan Shan lay back down, a hand on his stomach, and his gaze wandered the low ceiling of his bedroom.

‘Because of something else. He wouldn’t tell me. Family stuff.’

His mom said, ‘So he left everything. And he didn’t want to.’

‘Who knows,’ Guan Shan muttered. ‘Maybe it was exactly what he wanted. Maybe it was all a front just so he could go and fuck other people.’ He dragged his fingernails across his sheets. ‘People are creative when they want to break up with someone and don’t know how to, right? They say they’re moving away. That they have commitments. It’s all just bullshit though.’

A glance at his mother, and she was frowning. Not, he realised, at what he’d said—what he’d _admitted_ to. Had she known?

‘He didn’t seem like the type.’ Her words were honest and open and assessing. ‘And he wants to care for you the only way he knows how to. With money.’

‘Yeah, _that’s_ the kinda guy I like,’ Guan Shan said dryly. ‘Someone who throws money at problems he can’t be bothered to fix.’

‘I think we both know there are more reasons behind He Tian’s actions than that.’

Guan Shan closed his eyes. His mom was scolding him; there was an edge of reprimand to her voice. He’d… missed this.

‘Mom, what do I do?’ he asked. ‘How do you stop feeling like this? How long does it take?’

Silence.

He swallowed, tilted his head, opened his eyes.

She was looking right at him, waiting like she knew he would ask this if she played her cards right, like she was getting where she hoped she finally would.

 _You’re a chess board,_ she’d once said to him. He was sixteen. They’d gone for dinner; Guan Shan had stood up and stormed out. Some stupid argument, wounds still fresh: He Tian; his mom re-opening old ones: his dad. She’d found him one street down on a graffitti’d park bench, his trainers digging crevices into the gravel with each sullen kick.

 _Because I’m always so fucking difficult to navigate?_ he’d asked, steeling himself for another outburst. He could already feel it building inside of himself like a supernova.

 _No_ , she’d said. _Because I have to think five steps ahead of every move, so that when I make my move it’s one that matters. So I can get through to you. Bring your barriers down one by one until you’ll listen. Or until you decide you want to be honest with me and tell me what’s really going on._

Guan Shan had said, _Sounds fucking exhausting._

His mom shrugged. Her expression had been wry, and it was the kind they used to share: some quiet secret. Something funny that only they could laugh at. _It’s a process,_ she said. _And I’m getting faster at knowing which move to make._

He sensed it in her now: the relief of knowing she’d made the right ones. He guessed he was like a door with ten locks, each one needing a different key, needing to be unlocked in a sequence. He Tian had been simple: open a door and walk straight in. You got what you were given.

‘It takes as long as it needs to,’ she said now. ‘Sometimes it never stops. Sometimes you don’t… ever really stop waiting, or thinking. But it gets easier. A little lighter.’

‘No, I just want it _gone_ ,’ Guan Shan said. He wanted something permanent. Something irreversible.

He watched her tuck a strand of hair behind her ear, the gesture girlish and calm. Sometimes he forgot that she was still so young. Too young to have had a kid. Too young to have gotten married. Too fucking young to have been left alone.

She sighed and said, ‘Is it easy to cut off your own arm? Or pull out a lung? This is a part of you. It doesn’t just work like that. If you want to cut out a scar, you’re going to have a bigger scar.’ She paused. ‘You can tattoo over it, or turn it into something else. But it doesn’t change the tissue underneath.’

‘I didn’t wanna hear this.’

Simply, ‘I’m your mother. I’ll tell you what you need to hear before I’ll tell you what you want.’

He rubbed at his face, felt the tiredness in his eyes. His teeth ached. His throat felt dry and dusty. He wanted to sleep, and keep sleeping, until he could wake up and it would be gone. But he knew what she would say: time just delayed the inevitable. His problems would still be there when he woke up.

‘So… nothing,’ he surmised. ‘Keep living through this.’

‘Baby steps,’ she said. ‘Play basketball. Spend time with me like we used to. Think about school. If you think about him, then let that happen. Don’t try and push it away.’

Guan Shan curled on his side, pressed his cheek into the pillow. In a cautious voice, he asked, ‘Was this what it was like with Dad?’

She was quiet for a while. He started to think maybe he shouldn’t have asked. But he knew she liked to talk about his dad, and sometimes just as an issue rather than as a person. He knew she would like that he was trying. Eventually: ‘In some ways it was worse, because I knew where he was going, and how long for. In some ways it was better, for the same reasons.’

‘You think I’m an idiot? ‘Cause I’m young. ‘Cause I don’t know what it’s really like to lose someone and—’

‘I don’t think you’re an idiot,’ she said softly. Her hand went to his shoulder. ‘It’s alright to feel what you feel. One day you might look back and you’ll wonder how it could have ever been like this. But that doesn’t make it wrong. Also you’re my son, and I didn’t raise an idiot.’

‘Say that to my teachers,’ he muttered.

She snorted. Patted him. ‘Your grades can be excused. For _now_ , not _forever_ , Mo Guan Shan.’

‘I wanted to make you proud,’ he told her. He didn’t know why he was telling her this. Tomorrow this bubble of honesty would dissipate, and he’d sweep up the awkward remnants like a popped balloon. ‘After Dad, I told myself that was my chance to prove myself. To do what he couldn’t. I’m fucking it up.’

‘Because you’re trying to make me proud,’ she said. ‘When I want you to make yourself proud.’

‘Is this that thing you talk about with your patients? That self-worth thing?’

She smiled at him. ‘Something like that.’

‘Do they ever listen to you? Do what you say?’

‘Sometimes,’ she said. Winked. ‘If they know what’s good for them.’

 

* * *

 

The city was different at night. Street-corners changed, took on a different shape. Lights were brighter and their hue was lurid and rich. Cars slinked and lurked through the roads; shadows stretched long and mawish. The park where She Li asked him to meet was the same: there was no romanticism about it. The city was different at night, but night carried everything the same way.

She Li was sitting on the back of a bench when Guan Shan arrived, feet planted on the seat. He was dressed in black, silver hair catching orange lamplight, rings glinting. His dog tags hung low around his neck.

A tall guy with his hood up stood in front of She Li, hands in his pockets, shoulders rounded. He rocked back on his heels while they talked, voice too low for Guan Shan to hear. To someone who didn’t know She Li, or the people he kept around him, they both looked relaxed; they could have been friends. But She Li didn’t have friends, and Guan Shan knew he was at his most dangerous when he was comfortable.

Guan Shan waited a moment, lingering by the wrought iron arch that framed the park entrance. They hadn’t seen him, but it didn’t take long for She Li’s gaze to flicker across when he stepped forward. She Li’s mouth moved, something muttered. The guy he was with turned, hood shadowing his face. Guan Shan felt himself falter.

Behind the stranger, She Li raised a hand. _Hey, friend._

Guan Shan started walking at the same time the guy did, steady steps that he knew must have looked too cautious, moving like he wanted to put his back to a wall. A handful of paces and they were going to collide.

_Four, three, two—_

The guy veered right. His shoulder brushed Guan Shan’s. Guan Shan only saw a shadow, caught a familiar scent that he couldn’t place, lost in seconds.

Guan Shan didn’t stop, or look back. Something had settled low in his stomach.

When he stopped in front of She Li, She Li said, ‘You’ve been avoiding me since we graduated.’

‘Who was that?’

A flash of white teeth, stretched into a smile. ‘An old friend. Sends his regards.’

Guan Shan ran his knuckles along his jawline, stubble grazing his skin. ‘Yeah, he seemed real polite.’

‘It’s an off day for him,’ She Li replied, shrugging. ‘Saw some things he didn’t expect to, probably. Don’t mind him.’

Guan Shan watched him the way one would watch a snake that was eager to strike. Would it be the jugular? Guan Shan remembered that smile. No, probably the femoral. She Li had a thing for details. A flair for entertainment. Guan Shan remembered liking that about him once—maybe once admiring. She Li saw things in a way that he didn’t.

And then, after a time, Guan Shan realised that _everyone_ saw things in a way that he didn’t, and that no one saw things in the way that he did, because he was different too. The realisation came eventually: She Li’s brand of uniqueness wasn’t something to be admired.

‘You’ve been avoiding me,’ She Li said again.

‘I’ve been busy,’ Guan Shan muttered. He shoved his hands in his pockets. ‘I got a job. You know how it is.’

She Li considered him. ‘You’re still hanging on for him, aren’t you?’

‘Huh?’

‘Don’t play dumb. It doesn’t suit you. You know what I’m talking about.’

Guan Shan looked away. He did. Didn’t mean he wanted to talk about it. Did he have a choice with She Li? He used to think no. And then He Tian had paved a way for him with his fists and a cut to his palm and a blade at his throat.

The problem was that having someone to fight his battles meant Guan Shan was vulnerable the second they left; he hadn’t set up those defences himself. Guan Shan was down to the pawns on his chess board. Maybe a rook, if he was lucky.

‘I haven’t been… well,’ Guan Shan said. ‘I’ve been useless to you.’

‘Use?’ She Li repeated. ‘That’s low. I’m not allowed to see my friends unless I want something?’

Guan Shan, silent, gave him an even look. After a moment, She Li laughed.

‘Fair enough,’ he said, eyes eerily bright. ‘I won’t play dumb either. Doesn’t suit me, I’m sure.’

‘Sure,’ said Guan Shan. He ran his gaze across the surroundings: the group of teens on the grass verges, phones glowing, cigarette smoke drifting skyward; late-night runners wiping away sweat with a forearm; the slow roll of cars passing the park gates. He couldn’t see any of She Li’s usual friends. He wondered where they were watching from. ‘If you knew that I was--if you knew I wasn’t around, why d’you still want me?’

‘Everyone has a use, Guan Shan.’

‘You mean everyone has something you can exploit.’

She Li laughed again. ‘Fuck, someone’s feeling bitter tonight, aren’t they?’

‘I’m tired. I start early. I don’t want to be here.’

The amusement faded. ‘Yes, alright, let’s not waste both our times.’ She Li stood from the bench, a too-fluid movement, and stepped forward. It was a test of instinct, of will, not to take an answering step back.

‘What are you doing?’ Guan Shan muttered. She Li’s face was inches from his own.

‘What do you think?’ She Li replied. He dragged finger and thumb along the hem of Guan Shan’s t-shirt. ‘I’ve _missed_ you.’

Guan Shan’s face screwed up. He bit the inside of his cheek. ‘Don’t play this shit with me.’

She Li gazed at him, low-lidded, amber eyes whorling beneath dark lashes. ‘You haven’t missed me?’ he said. ‘How things used to be between us?’

‘How was that?’ Guan Shan said. ‘Where you set me up and nearly got me expelled? That kind of thing?’

‘God, you _are_ bitter tonight,’ She Li teased. ‘Dust off the cobwebs, Guan Shan. Why bother dredging up the old past when we can have now?’

Guan Shan let his eyes roam She Li’s face, sharper and stronger than it used to be. He wasn’t bad looking. They both knew that. But Guan Shan wasn’t dealing with a face: he was dealing with a mind, and he needed something more surface than that. Something more open, and real. Something tangible. He needed darker eyes and slow smiles and desire plain and heavy between them. It was almost funny that he could associate He Tian with something like certainty now. Like security.

‘You don’t like me,’ Guan Shan said. ‘We both know you’ve got a thing for pretty blonds with pale skin.’

She Li’s lips twitched. Something flashed in his eyes. _Dangerous territory_ , Guan Shan thought. And then: _I don’t give a fuck._

‘I’d still fuck you,’ She Li said. ‘You’d still like it.’

‘No, I wouldn’t.’

She Li made a pleased ‘hmm’ sound. ‘Want to test the theory?’

‘It’s not a fucking theory,’ Guan Shan said through gritted teeth.

She Li sighed. After a minute, he stepped away, and it was like there was space to breathe. Like the air had grown a little cleaner with the distance, less likely to jar in Guan Shan’s throat and choke him.

‘Fine,’ She Li said. ‘But you know I’ll give you what you need if you want it.’

‘I don’t want it. And I don’t know what you’ll ask for.’

‘For once: nothing. A favour for a friend in need.’

Guan Shan considered that for a brief moment. If he’d said yes, how long would that transaction stay just a _favour_? How long, after Guan Shan cleaned between his thighs and She Li drank the vodka from the minibar, would it take for She Li to mention the rest of the terms and conditions? The ones that had never been mentioned, and She Li would say that Guan Shan _should have just known about?_

‘No,’ Guan Shan said, readying himself to leave. ‘I don’t need anything. Was this all you wanted? ‘Cause I’ve got shit to do.’

‘Almost,’ said She Li, stepping forward—and then his mouth slammed against Guan Shan’s like a viper’s strike.

It happened fast and brutal, a tongue wound with his, a sharp taste in his mouth, something metal, cool fingers through the cropped strands of his hair, invasive and filthy and _painful_ —and then Guan Shan was stumbling backwards, hand pressed over his mouth in defence, wounded.

‘You _fuck_ ,’ he rasped. ‘You fucking—You _cunt, you—’_

His voice was shaking too much; he had to stop. The violation was too familiar. Nothing and everything had been the same.

His eyes burned. His pulse was hammering under his skin. She Li was watching him. Guan Shan wanted to break his teeth.

‘Oh, sorry. I forgot you didn’t like it when people did that.’

_‘Go fuck yourself.’_

He wouldn’t get more than a few punches in, he knew. Rage like this only ever carried him so far. She Li would have knives somewhere.

She Li said, ‘I already offered.’ He pulled a face. ‘Twice in one night’s a little bit desperate, even for me.’

Guan Shan stared at him, wide-eyed. He didn’t drop his hand. He could taste blood in his mouth, sharp and coppery.

 _His or mine?_ And then: _What’s the difference?_

He wasn’t really aware when She Li left. Vaguely, he felt the squeeze of his shoulder, rings pressing into his skin, body gone cold now despite the warm night. His lips, dry and cracked, didn’t feel like his own.

His fingers were wet when he pulled them away from his mouth, eyes stinging, salt bleeding into the broken skin of his lips. Just like his dad. He pulled in slow breaths, pinched the skin at his waist like he’d been winded with a fist in his gut. The feeling was the same: a desperate drag of air into his lungs, sharp pain on the inhale, a slow ache starting to bloom.

 _It was just a fucking kiss,_ he thought, some rational part of his mind trying to scream at him to calm the fuck down. _Not even that. You know what it’s like to be kissed properly._

And then an explosion: memory crawling through the walls of his brain, shooting like gunfire, kisses stolen from the corners of his mouth, lips full and swollen between his, a nose digging into the juncture of his hips, hot cigarette breath over the column of his throat, a tongue burning across his wrists. He remembered every touch dragged across his skin like creeping ivy, like wisteria, like the slow roll of a storm cloud. Knew what it was like to be kissed properly.

But the desperate realisation shuddered through him still, jagged and awful, nausea spilling over: if it had been He Tian for She Li, a second time unwilling, their ruined first kiss on repeat, Guan Shan knew he would have let him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [I'm on Tumblr.](http://agapaic.tumblr.com/)


	3. end

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm on [Tumblr](http://agapaic.tumblr.com) and [Twitter](http://twitter.com/bethan0mae).

Guan Shan’s footprints stain the floorboards as he steps through his bedroom, towel loose around his hips, steam curling behind him, and he cracks open a window. City lights glare back at him, engines and car horns a discordant blare into his room. His skin is shower-warm and slightly damp to the touch, and the humidity pushes back at him hot and close.

He swipes the beads from his skin with his towel and pulls on a pair of briefs. A sniff at a balled-up t-shirt on the floor, a check for stains, and he shrugs that over too, neckline dampening from the water that clings to his hair and slides down his neck, the air hot and humid enough that he never quite feels dry.

On his bed, his phone screen is lit up with a stream of notifications, and he plucks it from the sheets and swipes to his most recent messages.

_Got a free ticket for the game tonight. You in?_

He glances at the sender—a group chat with a bunch of guys he knows but isn’t friends with; acquaintances of circumstance. How many people does he know but isn’t friends with? How many social circles does he swim through like a trembling shadow, never finding its place, gone when the sun goes down and swallowed whole by the night?

He thinks about this, and takes in the room: bed (too small, unmade), second-hand bureau (clothes spilling out of broken drawers and onto the floor), a desk (worn, scratched with the idle slices of a pen knife, and smothered under magazines and wrappers and loose change). A bottle of days-old beer sits half-drunk and stale on his bedside table, glowing amber under the lamplight. He knows, under the mattress of his bed, springs broken, that he’ll find a crumpled carton of cigarettes and a zippo lighter empty of fluid.

The truth is laid out bare and barren, a sour taste in his mouth, stale as old beer and broken cigarettes: there’s nothing here for him. There hasn’t been since he moved in when he was eighteen, since he bought out the apartment lease a couple of weeks ago when he turned nineteen. Money wasted and with nothing else to be spent on. There was nothing here for him then, and there’s nothing here for him now. Not tonight. Not ever.

He’s stopped looking for somewhere where there’s something. He knows where that could have been. Maybe. Probably not. But days and weeks and months have passed, and slowly all somethings turn to nothing, too.

His thumb hovers over the keyboard. They didn’t have to ask him. He couldn’t have afforded the ticket anyway. But he knows how they would have gotten it. The immorality of it brushes the inside of his skull, a featherlight touch across the ridges of his spine, and then it’s gone.

 _Sure,_ he types back. _See u there._

 

* * *

 

The stadium is packed and too hot and he remembers it’s summer again. Basketball shoes screech against the floor, bodies darting fast and sweat-soaked across the court. Guan Shan tugs at the neckline of his vest, the material sticking to his back, sweat beading the clipped strands of his hair where it touches his nape.

The home team is winning by a mile, a sharp electricity running through the stands with the glow of near-victory. Guan Shan lets a smile tug at the corner of his mouth as he takes a swig of beer, a two-point field goal scored.

A quarter of the game left to go, and the guys have already left, powder in their back pockets. They’ll be wired when he finds them later in one of the city bars. When he shifts in his seat, he’s more aware of his movements, now-empty seats around him and the press of a switchblade against his waistband.

‘Sneaky fucker,’ Chueng Min muttered in his ear earlier. ‘Bringing that through security?’

‘Stupid fucker,’ said Sung Tao, a shoulder knocked against Guan Shan’s as they moved away from the police officers loitering at the metal detectors. It was too forceful to be friendly; too boisterous to be playful. Guan Shan shrugged it off. It was always like that with Sung Tao.

‘Crazy fucker,’ Liu Bo corrected. His eyebrow piercing glinted under stadium lights as they headed through the stands, and Guan Shan’s gaze fishhooked on Liu Bo’s spinal tattoo, the lurid red ink of a dragon’s scales creeping out the neckline of his t-shirt. ‘You think She Li’d back you up if you got caught?’

Guan Shan glanced at him as they found their seats. ‘You think they don’t know She Li?’ he asked. ‘You thought it’d take anything more than a look at your shitty tattoo to know who we are?’

‘Watch your fucking mouth,’ Sung Tao glowered.

Guan Shan shrugged at him as they sat, shut in with a woman at his left, Liu Bo on his right, leaning in close enough for Guan Shan to smell the cigarettes on his breath, see the dark dilation of his pupils.

He said, low, ‘The thing about cops, Red, is once they start sniffing for the money, you’re never guaranteed that they’ll be a loyal dog to _you_.’

‘Cops are fucking irrelevant in all this,’ said Chueng Min, cracking open the tab on his beer. Frothy liquid foamed out of the top, and he swore as he licked at the spilled beer from his hand, shrugged. ‘All that matters is how much he sucks She Li’s dick.’

Guan Shan gritted his teeth. ‘You and you mother can go fuck yourselves.’

Chueng Min grinned around spit-slick knuckles, feral and lascivious. ‘Only if you bring yours.’

_‘Fuck you.’_

‘You’re too touchy, friend,’ Liu Bo remarked evenly.

Guan Shan said, ‘I’m _exactly_ what I fucking need to be.’

‘And what’s that? Who’s that?’ His eyes, deep set in his skull, flashed across Guan Shan’s face like he could see the underneath. Guan Shan made himself sit there, and weather it, and stare back. He knew how to stand his ground; he knew what it was to be scrutinised and looked at.

It was two-fold.

The first way was snake-like, set in the shadows and the cracks in the walls, something waiting for him to fuck up in the inevitable way that he fucked up everything—something opportunistic that could cash in on his own self-made failures. The second was different, and Guan Shan didn’t remember being looked at like that for a long time. Something like want, something like a gaze reaching out to try and meet his own. Something he hadn’t ever, really, been able to quantify.

He’d hated it then. _Stop fucking looking at me._ He wondered what he’d do now to be in the eye of a beholder. And it was that question that brought him up short every time: the eye of anyone, or the eye of _him_? Was it about wanting He Tian to love him, or was it about wanting to be loved? How many transgressions had Guan Shan ignored while they grew up—while they were still stupid kids—because he hadn’t wanted He Tian’s affection, but because he’d wanted affection at all?

_Who’s that?_

Guan Shan was drawn back to the question, to Liu Bo’s sunken face and flashes of metal in his skin. The dragon peered out from beneath his shirt. Guan Shan met his gaze.

There were things Guan Shan could have said then, and maybe all of them and none of them were true. How could he answer a question he’d never had an answer to?

He said, ‘None of your fucking business, asshole.’

Liu Bo smirked, leaned back in his chair, plastic creaking. He jerked his chin towards the court. ‘Game’s starting. Asshole.’

 

* * *

 

 

He forgets how easy it is—to forget that he could be a nineteen-year-old kid watching a basketball game on a Friday night with a group of not-quite-but-the-closest-thing-he’s-got-to friends. Reminders slip back to him in pieces like the bruising press of a headache behind his eyes.  

It takes him a while—three baskets, a yellow card—to realise that he isn’t alone. That the person two seats to his right, filling Sung Tao’s vacated seat, isn’t watching the game.

They’re watching him.

A flash of irritation surges: Guan Shan hadn’t noticed sooner; he can’t watch a fucking game without some fuck pushing pin pricks into the back of his neck with a stare.

He shifts closer to the edge of the seat, hard plastic digging into the backs of his thighs, fingers biting into the underside of the chair. He’s ready. Ignores the voice in his head that tells him not to make a scene again—as if he can help the way anger rolls through him like a hurricane. As if he can _protect_ himself from it, wrecking and ravaging everyone but mostly—always—himself.

It takes him a few seconds, breathing steady while he watches the away team basket a free throw, and then he’s turning.

‘If I’m so fucking interesting, then why don’t you… take a fucking—picture, you…’

It’s a mess of words that trip and shape themselves awkwardly on his tongue, stumbling over glass shards and trees petrified by lightning. And if He Tian is the lightning, Guan Shan is the tree, charred and scorched with its roots unearthed and blackened.

‘It’s been a while since I’ve had the chance to look at you,’ says He Tian, watching him. He has a leg crossed over at the knee, an arm slung over the back of the vacant chair between them.

The stadium is silent.

There’s static, and darkness curling in at the edges of Guan Shan’s vision.

He can hear himself breathing. He can feel himself unable to move.

He’s going to throw up.

Too quickly, too sudden, the heat is nauseating, spotlights blinding and prickling his skin with sweat; the sound of the game is a horn blaring into his skull, the screeching of the court like nails running down the marrow of his bones. He hasn’t had time to defend himself against this. He’d had no walls up. And He Tian has walked straight through.

He knows, frozen and ashen in his seat, that if he’d had any kind of guard up, some portcullis over his heart, and iron over the joints of his bones, something molten and silver left to harden over the strings of muscle—He Tian would have walked through anyway.

_Or broken his way through._

It’s that thought that gets him out of his seat, leaves him stumbling across the stands to the nearest exit. He shoulders his way past vendors and spectators milling in the aisles, lets his fingertips graze the rough cold brick of the tunnels that lead out into the empty entry foyer.

He feels drunk, head woollen, limbs separate entities he doesn’t have enough control over. All he needs is _out._

The group of officers look up as he heads to the doors, nudging each other. He doesn’t stop when the metal detector goes off as he passes through, or when the turnstile jabs into his hip bone enough to leave a hilt-shaped bruise in the morning.  

Behind, one of the officers shouts out to him.

Maybe under different circumstances he might have stopped, but nothing’s going to make him halt or report to anyone now.

‘I’ve got it covered,’ he hears, and the sound of that voice, twice in ten minutes, leaves him tripping through the automatic doors.

He realises it’s dark outside with an absent kind of observation, thoughts detached and dissociated, chest tight, heart caught in the vice-grip of a closed fist, and when the touch falls on his shoulder he’s crouched against the wall of some backstreet alley with his head in his hands.

_‘Don’t fucking touch me.’_

It comes out in a growl, snappish and guttural. He won’t apologise for it.

He Tian’s hand withdraws, slow. Not, Guan Shan thinks, like it had been sparked by a hot stove, but like He Tian didn’t want the touch to end.

‘You’re angry,’ He Tian says. And he sounds— _pleased._ Like he’s _missed_ this. _Asshole._

‘The fuck do you think?’ Guan Shan spits. He works his tongue around his teeth, locks his fingers tight in his hair. He tastes blood from bitten flesh in his mouth; he doesn’t remember when that happened, in the same way he wakes up too often with bruises on his skin that he can’t recall puncturing.

‘It’s boring without you,’ He Tian remarks. Quieter, muttered, said to the floor: ‘You have no idea what it’s like without you.’

Guan Shan squints up at him, lamplights beaming down bright on his retinas. He Tian’s propped his shoulder against the brick, smiling down. He looks… situational. As always. As he used to. Like the surroundings have been built and crafted around him—for him. Not an awkward puzzle piece that only fit with a push.

‘No idea,’ Guan Shan echoes. ‘What the fuck d’you want from me? You want me to feel sorry for you? Is that it?’

‘I thought you’d be happy to see me.’

‘Happy,’ Guan Shan echoes flatly. He can’t work out He Tian’s tone. ‘You thought I’d be… Fuck. You… you haven’t changed a bit, have you?’

‘Neither have you.’

Guan Shan pushes to his feet. He’s done crouching and hiding himself away and letting himself be looked at like this—this wounded, and vulnerable. Like all of this has affected him _far_ more than it has any right to.

He Tian’s taller than he used to be—six-three? Six-four?—but then so is Guan Shan. There’s that same difference between them—that same imbalance. It doesn’t mean He Tian has the upperhand; it’s not that simple. But there’s an unevenness about the both of them that seems eternal. Like they’re passing at crossroads and missing each other by inches every time—a brush of cloth, the lingering curl of aftershave, cigarette smoke.

 _Passing?_ Guan Shan thinks. Because they haven’t passed—they’ve caught each other around the waist or the neck, grabbed on and held, thrashing, until the other gave in, subdued. A wrestle. A spar. Call it what it is: a fight with two winners and two losers.

‘Yeah?’ Guan Shan says. ‘How’s that? You’ve talked to me for a minute. A minute in three years and you—you think you _know_ me? You think you get to make that kind of _judgment_ about who I am? Are you fucking kidding me? Who _are_ you?’

He Tian watches him with that same fucking steadiness he used to. There’s an added weight to it, something aged, a dark heaviness that Guan Shan doesn’t want to know. He doesn’t want to know what He Tian has seen or done or learnt. He doesn’t want to know how it’s changed He Tian from the thing he once knew. He doesn’t want to have to relearn how to be around him and near him.

He can already feel himself waiting to brace.

Growing up, he’d caught glimpses of the creature that liked to stare out. _Monster or demon?_ he’d wonder. Would wonder when it would show itself next. Would wonder if maybe He Tian was neither. That maybe _it_ was the real thing, and the person Guan Shan knew was just wearing its skin, some imitator that didn’t throw its punches as hard as it could. That didn’t wreak and reap like it could.

‘I think I _knew_ you,’ He Tian tells Guan Shan eventually, correcting him. ‘And I could tell what sort of person you’d be. And ten minutes is enough for some things. It’s enough for me.’

‘Ten?’ Guan Shan says. He can’t help himself: ‘Please. Some nights you barely lasted five.’

He Tian chokes out laughter, shocked pleasure brimming. It’s strange to hear it. Guan Shan used to wonder what caused it, that bright spark of humour that He Tian kept so tightly locked. Used to wonder how he brought it out of him. Use to feel some burgeoning well of happiness inside himself that he _had_ brought it out of He Tian. Still, apparently, could.

 _Used to, used to, used to._ His head is wrapping around the reality that He Tian is _here_ , _now_ , _standing in front of you and looking at you._

Guan Shan glares back at him. ‘You left me. You owe me an explanation.’

‘I had no choice, and I can’t give you anything, owed or not.’

Guan Shan sets himself. ‘If you don’t tell me anything, then I swear you’ll never fucking see me again. I _promise_ you that.’

He Tian gives him a steady look. Assessing. Cool. Like he’s measuring the distance between buildings and wondering if he could make the jump. Guan Shan thinks he could, and he wants him to jump even if He Tian thinks he can’t. Isn’t he worth that much? A few bruises, grazed knuckles. A broken neck.

‘Fine,’ says He Tian. He holds a hand out, palm up. ‘Let’s go.’

Guan Shan stares at it. Ignores it. Brushes past him. ‘Let’s go.’

 

* * *

 

They find an all-night café to sit in. It takes a silent five-minute walk, and other than a tired-looking server thumbing through a book on Hong Kong law with her hip propped against an espresso machine, they’re the only ones there. The light is cleanly, clinically bright, at odds with the close-to-midnight darkness. Guan Shan’s attention flits between He Tian’s slow stirring of his coffee—milk, no sugar—and the bruise he’s just noticed on He Tian’s jaw line. The hatched white lines across his knuckles. He’s missing a molar.

‘Was there anyone else?’ Guan Shan asks.

He Tian puts the spoon on the table. He sips his coffee with one hand; the other is wrested on the edge of the table at his wrist, and his forefinger spins the ring on his thumb.

‘Anyone else that I fell in love with? No.’

‘But you fucked other people.’

He Tian gives him an odd look, sets the to-go cup down. ‘You didn’t?’

Guan Shan grits his teeth. ‘Did you? Because I—’

‘Yes.’

‘—didn’t.’

They stare at each other.

 _Oh,_ Guan Shan thinks. _Right._

Silence passes.

‘It’s been three years,’ says He Tian. He’s disbelieving. Alarmed. There’s a glimmer of something in his eyes that Guan Shan can’t place.

‘It has,’ Guan Shan agrees, quiet.

He Tian sits leans back in his seat. He runs his fingers through his hair, mutters something under his breath that Guan Shan can’t quite catch. Music runs through the café speakers, a mix of soft indie Western tracks that Guan Shan’s unfamiliar with. He tries to make out the lyrics while he waits, brow furrowed.

Every so often, his eyes, magnetised, flick to He Tian—to the fit of his dark clothes on a body still tall and lithe and iron-strong, to the loss of any softness that might once have lingered on the edge of his jaw or the fullness of his cheeks, carved out by hard bone lines and shadows. There is no mistaking, in any sense, that he is now a man.

He Tian’s gathered his thoughts at last: ‘There wasn’t—you didn’t find anyone you—not even a one-night stand? A hook-up?’

Guan Shan looks back at him and ignored the chill that runs its way down his spine. ‘You’re asking why I didn’t have a fuckbuddy? Serious?’

‘I wasn’t cheating,’ says He Tian. ‘It wasn’t the same.’

‘Because you didn’t tell me to wait, I know. You got yourself out of that mess, didn’t you?’

He Tian glowers at him. ‘Don’t be fucking ridiculous. I never asked you to wait because I didn’t want to put that in your head. Because it wouldn’t be _fair._ Not because I wanted a free-pass to go out and get my dick wet.’

‘And yet that’s exactly what it seems like—’

‘ _I was fucking sixteen, Mo Guan Shan!_ I didn’t know what the fuck I was going to be doing or where I was going or who I was going with! You really think being told that I had to leave somewhere I’d found a home and someone I’d found a home with made me think—straight off the fucking bat—that I should figure out the fucking _technicalities_ of what I said to you so I’d be _free to fuck people_?’

The barista looks up, eyes dancing between the two of them. A look at He Tian’s clenched fists on the table and her attention turns back down to her book. She flips a page with a careful _fwick._ Their voices aren’t low, and she’ll hear if she really wants to. Guan Shan can’t actually bring himself to give a fuck.

He takes a moment to understand what He Tian’s saying, mouth slightly parted, a persistent ridge between his brows. He shakes his head. It does nothing to clear it. He runs his fingers through the condensation on the cup of water, fingertips cold and wet. He trails characters into the wooden table surface, stained with coffee rings and pastry crumbs, watery syllables that dry too quickly and won’t leave a mark.

‘Guan Shan, I—’ He Tian laughs to himself. Derisory and dark. ‘I thought about you every day. I kept thinking I’d get over it. I kept thinking, _one day I’ll wake up and I won’t think about him. One day I won’t feel like this_ . _One day I’ll…_ I’ll go a day and realise I didn’t think about you once.’

Guan Shan ignores the wrenching feeling of familiarity in his stomach. He wipes his hands in a napkin, says, ‘You thought about me while you were fucking someone else?’

He Tian stares at him. ‘You really want to know?’

Guan Shan sets his jaw. This will hurt either way. The skin’s already flayed—he’s going to scar. Does he choose to heal with the slow ache of time or the quick, bone-deep burn of cauterisation?  

He throws the balled-up napkin onto the table. Jerks his chin in He Tian’s direction. _Tell me._

He Tian breathes out through his mouth. ‘Do you know,’ he says, slow, ‘how hard it is to find a guy with red hair in this part of the world?’

Guan Shan grips the edge of the table.

‘Do you know how hard it is to find someone who—wears _anger_ like you do? Someone who swears at you while you’re fucking them, and can still somehow make it sound like _I love you_?’

‘I get it.’

‘They’re expensive, Guan Shan. Those sorts of people. They’re rare, and hard to come by, and they make you _work_ for it—’

‘Fuck, stop it.’

‘—and there’s only one of them,’ he finishes. Guan Shan realises he’s holding his breath. ‘There’s only one guy I’ve ever met like that, and I knew I wouldn’t find someone like him again again. And to _find_ someone else who was even the slightest bit like that—it would never be enough. No one would ever be enough, and they weren’t.’

His fingers go to the chain around his neck, a flash of silver. Guan Shan isn’t sure what makes his heart ache more: the ring around the chain that Guan Shan gave He Tian when they were fifteen in return for an earring, or the gesture of nervousness that He Tian would have never once given away. Guan Shan wonders helplessly if it’s on purpose. After all, he knows him.

He Tian says, ‘I didn’t want them to be anything like you. I wanted to think of only them, and how they felt, and how a couple hours with them would be. Nothing before. Nothing after. Because—because all the rest of that time was only ever spent thinking about you.’

Guan Shan closes his eyes briefly. ‘You could’ve just said no.’

When he opens them, He Tian’s smiling, Cheshire-wide, dark eyes glittering. ‘But where’s the fun in that?’

‘I hate you.’

‘You don’t.’

‘I should.’

He Tian opens his mouth. Closes it. He says, soft, ‘Maybe you should. Maybe I should hate you.’

Guan Shan frowns at him. ‘What the fuck did I do?’

He Tian shrugs. His shifts the cardboard coffee holder up and down over the cup. Different circumstances, a different tone, and the motion might have been suggestive. Guan Shan might have tracked the movement with his eyes. Let a smirk toy at the edge of his lips. He’s too tired for that now.

‘You said you didn’t,’ He Tian says. ‘With anyone. That’s the truth?’

Guan Shan narrows his eyes. ‘Are you calling me a liar.’

He Tian takes a swig of coffee. He clears his throat. Guan Shan doesn’t smoke, but he almost wants a cigarette, watching He Tian’s fidgeting. With anyone else, it would have gone unnoticed. But He Tian was always stiller than this. He made every move—every expense of energy—count. Nothing was wasted unless it need to be. Unless he wanted someone to think it was.

He Tian asks, ‘What’s between you and She Li?’

Guan Shan chokes on his water until his eyes stream and his throat burns. The cigarette would have done the same. He swallows another mouthful, careful this time.

‘The fuck are you talking about?’ he manages eventually, wiping at his mouth with the back of his hand.

He Tian just watches. ‘I’m talking about you and him. Kissing.’

‘What. The fuck. Are you talking about.’

‘You’re saying it didn’t happen?’

‘He fucking _attacked_ me,’ Guan Shan outrages. ‘If you knew anything you’d know how much I fucking _hate_ being touched like that.’

He Tian looks away. They both know what Guan Shan’s talking about; it’s etched into their minds, a hot day on the skirting edge of a basketball court. How young they’d been; how fucking stupid. How cruelly unforgiving.

Guan Shan’s mind catches up with itself. ‘How do you know?’

‘What?’

‘How do you know what he did?’

He Tian sits there, and Guan Shan wants the music to stop. He wants the girl behind the counter to fuck off. _Honesty,_ he’d asked for. Three years ago. Has he had anything like that tonight? Did He Tian ever stop being so fucking subversive? Where did the differences between He Tian and She Li really lie? The lines were blurring, and Guan Shan didn’t know who was sitting across from him.

‘You’ve been back a while,’ Guan Shan says. ‘That was you. Speaking to She Li. You just—walked straight fucking past. You went to _him_ before you went to _me._ ’

‘Guan Shan—’

‘Fuck, don’t even _try_ and talk your way out of this one. After everything he did to me—did to _you_ —and—’

He runs out of things to say. Nothing quite sums up the static in his head. He sits back in his seat, arms limp at his sides, and he wants to laugh. How much of this, as someone younger and blinder, had he forgiven for the affection it carried with it? How many raw-throat arguments and bruising grips had he glanced away from just to be watched and looked at? To know that someone wanted to kiss him and would if he let them?

He wants to laugh because he can see it now. Because he’s tireder and his anger has taken on a more permanent, slow-burning quality; he’s not blinded by that kind of irascible, youthful rage so much anymore. He wants to laugh because he doesn’t have to sit here and listen to this anymore if he doesn’t want to. He has agency.

Still, a fear creeps up on him: what if he only thinks he does?

‘I’m going home,’ he says. ‘I’m not dealing with this bullshit anymore.’

When he gets up, He Tian doesn’t move. He has his arms folded and his brow drawn low, mouth set, immovable. It’s only when Guan Shan swipes his wallet from the table and downs the rest of his water that He Tian jerks in his seat.

Halfway to the door, He Tian’s fingers grip his elbow, the hot press of his body at Guan Shan’s back, crowding him in. It makes him close his eyes, and still, and breathe in slow.

 _You’re not the same anymore,_ he tells himself. _You don’t need him like you did. You’re better than whatever the fuck he was offering._

Through the mantra, he knows that trying to convince himself of something doesn’t necessarily make it true. He knows that repeating it like a metronome doesn’t make it any easier to believe.

‘Get off me.’

‘You’re not even going to hear me out?’ He Tian asks lowly. ‘Don’t I get that at least?’

Guan Shan stares ahead. It’s light in the café, soft modernism settled around them in a way that’s almost empty. Outside, tower lights blink down at them; car lights glide past on the roads in the slow night heat. It looks less edged out there than it feels in here. The city looks like it would hide him well, wrap him gently in the darkness, let him slink by invisible and unbothered.

But He Tian always saw better in the dark. He became something more, and Guan Shan was rendered useless. Was.

_Is?_

‘I went to him because of business. If I’d known you’d be there I wouldn’t have gone at all. I wanted—You were supposed to be the first one I saw.’

‘But you had no choice,’ Guan Shan finishes for him, dull. He registers what He Tian’s saying—that She Li’s business is now He Tian’s. That they’re both wrapped up in the same bullshit. Could they have ever had anything different?

 _Has he been in contact with She Li this whole time?_ Guan Shan thinks. How much pleasure She Li must have derived from the whole thing: seeing Guan Shan torn down, placating him, with He Tian at his ear. His fucking _kiss_ must have been filled with so much spoiled pleasure.

‘Do you really think there’s something here for me?’ He Tian says. His fingers press hard into the juncture of Guan Shan’s elbow. ‘You think I would come back here because I wanted to go back to an empty apartment and a city with no family and friends who’ve all moved on and forgotten me?’

‘Then why’d you even come back?’

He Tian lets go like he’s been burned. Absently, Guan Shan rubs at his skin, and glances back. He Tian has his eyes dark and shadowed, and his hands have fallen limp at his sides, claws pulled out of bloodied fingertips. He looks wounded in a way Guan Shan isn’t familiar with. Wasn’t he supposed to have come back stronger?

 _What the fuck happened to you?_ And then: _Maybe I need to be asking what the fuck happened to me?_

He stalks outside, and He Tian’s hounding him before the door can even close behind them. The sidewalks are quiet, not enough for a group to watch their domestic spectacle—their, what was it, unit of volatile predictability? Their imperfect duo. Two broken pieces that didn’t and still can’t, almost heartbreakingly, fit together.

‘Did you feel anything for me?’ He Tian asks, pulling them over against the window of a closed-down furniture store, glass replaced with plywood and crowded in flyers. ‘Before I left. Was it so fucking negligible to you that you can’t even give a shit about me now? That you can’t look at me. That you won’t even face the fact that I came back for _you._ ’

Guan Shan faces him and sets his stance. He shoves his hands in his pockets, scowls. His face is heated; his shoulders are aching and tense. ‘The fuck are you talking about?’

‘Why the fuck did you think so little of me?’ He Tian demands of him. ‘Why—That whole time we were together. What did you think that was? Did you even understand how _hard_ that was? For me? How new that was?’

Anger spills over Guan Shan’s insides, something hot and spiteful running through his veins and burning out his blood. He’s astounded; he’s made it so easy for He Tian to wreck his way back through like a storm that’s never left, air still charged, boughs of trees still flickering in a hot breeze, roots torn up, tormented sea trembling. Where are his barricades? Where are his three-year defences? Has he even _tried?_

‘You thought it would be this easy?’ Guan Shan says. ‘You thought you’d just punch your way back through and I’d say _okay_?’

‘ _You_ said all or nothing, Mo Guan Shan. And I’m offering you fucking _everything._ ’

Guan Shan seethes. ‘You’re offering me jack _shit_ , He Tian,’ he spits, fingernails embedding sharp in his palms. ‘And what you gave me was _maybe we will, maybe we won’t._ ’

‘Did you want me to _lie_ and—’

‘Oh, fuck _off_ ,’ Guan Shan cuts through. ‘You think I knew what the fuck I was doing? You think I had any clue? All I knew was how _I_ felt. Who the fuck could _ever_ know what you’re really thinking—’

‘ _You could!_ ’ He Tian shouts over him. ‘ _You_ were supposed to _know_ me, Guan Shan!’

‘ _I’m not a fucking mind-reader, He Tian!_ You _kissed_ me and said _good luck_ and _goodbye_ and that was _it_. What more am I supposed to think from that!’

He Tian pinches his brow between forefinger and thumb. His other hand bites into his hip. He wears frustration like a storm: a curl of dark cloud, still air, the electric charge that whispers of waiting.

 _How fucking dare he_ , Guan Shan thinks. _How the fuck could he expect me to know him when he didn’t even know himself?_

A quivering, tremulous moment, and He Tian starts off slowly. ‘I think I get why you thought I wouldn’t care. And I don’t think it’s about me.’

‘I think you’re about to say something that’s gonna make me want to punch you.’

He Tian ignores him. ‘It’s about you,’ he says. ‘It’s about _you_ thinking you’re not someone who someone will care for. And wait for.’

Guan Shan bites the inside of his cheek. ‘Are you… telling me I have a shit sense of _self-worth?_ Is that what this is? You think I don’t fucking _know_ that already? That I’m not exactly fucking aware of what I am and who I am and how other people should look at me?’

He Tian’s gaze is even. ‘You knew how I felt about you. I told you that. How you made things for me. How you turned my head inside out.’

‘Yeah, when we were practically kids,’ Guan Shan challenges. ‘You’re telling me I was supposed to assume that would stay the same? When every year passed? When you’d be eighteen? Nineteen?’

‘Did you think my feelings had changed because your own feelings changed? Have changed?’

‘I just _told you_ —’

‘Told me what?’ He Tian says. ‘You’ve told me to fuck off. That you’re angry with me. That you’re not happy I’m back. What was it you said? _I’m not a mind-reader._ Well, guess what, Guan Shan? _Neither am I._ And, frankly, everything you’ve said points to one thing only.’ He shakes his head, lets out a choked breath. ‘I’m not delusional. I’m practical, and I don’t waste my time, and I’m not going to try and fight for something if it ended a long time ago.’

Guan Shan tries to listen. He tries to figure out what He Tian’s saying—to strip it down to the bones. Is he giving up? Is he saying that three years was enough? That this has made him realise he waited futilely—never wanted Guan Shan at all—imagined him to _be_ something different? Maybe too much time has passed. And Guan Shan knows how easily memory distorts.

What comes out is: ‘But you just came back to me.’

He Tian backs up until he hits the window. ‘What… do you _think_ I’ve just been saying to you, Guan Shan?’

‘You’re messing with my fucking head. _You_ left _me_ , and this is all suddenly my fault?’

‘Fault? What the fuck are you talking about— _fault?_ This is no one’s fault, Guan Shan. No one’s right or wrong here. I just—I want to—Fuck.’ He steps away, has his hands clasped together, like he’s about to drop to his knees and start to pray. ‘Just tell me: _do you love me?’_

‘I—’

‘Wait, no,’ He Tian says. ‘ _Can_ you love me again if you don’t? If you—if you did. Ever.’

‘What are you talking—’

He Tian snaps. ‘Answer the fucking question for once without trying to start a fight, Guan Shan.’

He uses the same voice he used to, the one where he pushed Guan Shan up against a wall and ran a finger across his mouth. Told him to keep it shut. The night Guan Shan had seen He Tian’s brother and seen something in He Tian’s eyes that he hadn’t understood. Something darker than it should have been, something more dangerous than He Tian could have been. It pushed goosebumps across his skin, made his tongue slow and thick in his mouth. Pulled his eyes down until he could only feel He Tian’s gaze and not try to match it.

It doesn’t scare him anymore, just makes him pause. Pulls him back into the reality of the situation. Makes him reassess, recentre, like a bucket of cold water or a sharp slap across the face.

Does he love him? Did he ever? Can he now?

He takes him in, the same way he took in the city that night, tried to commit it to memory: He Tian’s clasped hands, white-knuckled, like he’s waiting for repentance. The warm night, billboards and passing cars and a low breeze. If he closes his eyes there’s the half-imagined sound of the commentators in the stadium, and a raucous, echoing cheer. But he opens them to see the sharp jaw, pressed mouth, the dark gaze he’s pinned with so severe it’s heart-breaking. It’s too heavy. Too solemn. Too honest and nothing close to truthful. Guan Shan used to watch He Tian smile, used to watch the way he laughed so easily with the backdrop of school and not-quite-friends.

 _Fake,_ he’d called him. Had thought, and never said, _You’re too sad to pretend to be so happy._

Only honest when he wanted something—needed something—couldn’t help himself. And isn’t that it? That he can’t help himself around Guan Shan. That maybe he wants to pretend to be happy around him. They can’t both be happy. Not yet.

And it’s that thought that brings Guan Shan up short: Not yet. Like he’s considering the future where they’re happy together. Where the pretences don’t exist.

 _Yes,_ he thinks, and _yes_ , and _yes._

But something new has nestled in him in three years. An amber warning light. He knows what red means. They’ve had time. Time that feels like Guan Shan’s wounds have had stitches; like they’ve settled. They don’t itch anymore. He’ll still scar.

He says, ‘I think we need time.’

He Tian says, ‘We’ve had three years of it.’

‘Then we can both wait more.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘Yeah, neither do I,’ Guan Shan says.

He Tian shifts. His eyes are tight at the corners. Guan Shan feels that tightness in his chest, a fist around his lungs, something squeezing his heart to slow its pulse. It’s not unbearable, but he can’t ignore the pressure. He doesn’t want to.

‘I think… What we had. What we were. You think we were good like that that?’

He Tian smiles, fond and oddly reminiscent. Guan Shan wonders, and doesn’t ask, what memory he’s recalling. ‘No. That’s why we liked it. Both kinda fucked up. We kept each other floating.’

‘Why did we need to float?’ Guan Shan asks. ‘You think we were pulling each other down?’

‘No. I think everything else was.’ After a moment, He Tian pulls out a cigarette pack from the back pocket of his jeans, lights up with a zippo that is familiar and not at all. Guan Shan thinks of the one under his mattress as smoke seeps from He Tian’s mouth. It seems to placate him, and he scratches at a small scar above his eyebrow Guan Shan had noticed in the café light. He shrugs, continues. ‘Our families. The people we knew. Know. The way—the way we’d been brought up. Just who we were.’

He’s careful not to say _I._ Like he can’t bring himself to take all the blame. Guan Shan thinks that’s fair: they were as bad as each other. _Both kinda fucked up._ It was accurate.

It was an understatement.

‘Not gonna force me into changing my mind?’ Guan Shan asks sourly. ‘Tell me I’m making a mistake?’

‘You’re making a mistake,’ He Tian says. He looks like he’s biting down on his tongue, like he’s repressing something bigger than he’s showing Guan Shan. Maybe it’s like the rage Guan Shan used to desperately try to cool, with holes in the buckets of water he’d toss at the fire, smoke stinging his eyes, embers that never went fully out. But He Tian has always been colder than that; granite and charcoal. The fossilised carcasses of trees and earth that Guan Shan still sets alight.

‘That’s it?’ Guan Shan says.

‘I’m not She Li. I know my limits.’

Guan Shan wants to press at the bruises under his clothing so he can feel something that’s real, and something that will remind him of how his body used to feel to the touch after He Tian would leave his mark. He settles for picking at the hangnail on his thumb, sucking at the skin when blood wells. ‘Since when d’you know anything about limits? D’you even get what you did?’

‘Three years is a long time.’

The words list slightly, and Guan Shan crooks his head. He nods at him. ‘Where did you go?’

A mirthless smile. ‘You don’t want to know.’

‘What did you do?’

‘You don’t want to know.’

Guan Shan rocks back on his heels. ‘Don’t trust me now?’

‘That’s—No,’ says He Tian. His grin is a strange, secretive thing. Something is hanging strangely between them. A new, fresh uncertainty. A beginning that is starting years later. Guan Shan doesn’t know what to call this.

Questions swim turbulently in his head: is this friendship? Will their past repeat itself? Could they even bear to be together or were their differences a disparate ocean they couldn’t swim across before they made each other drown?

‘This is me trying, isn’t it?’ He Tian asks. ‘I’m trying to make a good second impression.’

‘There’ll be a third?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘You’ll leave again. Just like before. No choice. And you want to _try_.’

He Tian grinds the burned-down cigarette beneath his shoe. ‘Don’t you?’ he asks, not looking up. His hair falls across his eyes, and Guan Shan can’t see his expression. He can just see the shadowed press of his mouth—stares at it like it could tell him something.

Guan Shan looks away. ‘Like I’m supposed to know what the fuck I want. Like any of this is normal.’

‘Any of this?’ He Tian presses.

‘You. Just turning back up. Looking like that. Me feeling… Fuck, feeling like this.’

‘Like this?’

Guan Shan presses fingertips into his eyes. On his eyelids, he sees constellations and blurry flashes of passing headlights. ‘Like—like I want you to kiss me ‘cause I’ve missed it and I know how much it’ll fucking hurt.’

He Tian says, ‘I won’t hurt you. Not anymore.’

Maybe there’s some truth in the words, because He Tian says them without moving, without trying to get closer. He keeps the distance between them even. But that’s _now_ . Guan Shan knows—he _knows_ —it won’t stay like that forever. Three years isn’t that long. People can’t change what’s in their core.

‘We’ll go slow,’ He Tian says. ‘I promise.’

_You wanted affection, and love, and to feel safe. How much of that can he ever give you? Why does it have to be him?_

He knows the answer already, and it flays at his skin like a whipcrack to acknowledge: _Who else could bear to look at someone like me and try and love me?_

Guan Shan drops his hands. He wants to close that space between them, and grab a fistful of He Tian’s t-shirt, the dark strands of his hair, the waistband of his jeans. Wants to relearn the body of his that is older and bigger and stronger, teenage wire turned into something hardened and corded like rope. He wants shoulders flexing under his fingertips, dark eyes tracking the way the canvas of his own body has since been crafted and built upon. He wants to peel back He Tian’s surface and see if it’s easier to get to the underneath, if it’s still a brick and mortar barrier, or if there’s flesh and hot blood and a beating heart.

His wants are fears twisted and coiled up with past and unknown present; He Tian isn’t the tall dark stranger he was warned about. He’s familiar in a way that’s edged and painful. Guan Shan knows exactly the damage he can reap. He knows exactly what becomes of himself when he lets him. He wants to taste the bitter coffee on He Tian’s tongue.

_People don’t change, people don’t change._

‘I’m different,’ He Tian says. His hand is around Guan Shan’s wrist, and his thumb, neat nails, calloused skin, brushes over the pulse. And again, ‘I promise.’

Cars stream past them, slower not because they are but because the night makes everything seem slower. It doesn’t, however, make Guan Shan’s heart beat less, or settle the carnival rush of blood in his veins, or calm the sea-storm rolling in his stomach that prefaces the beginnings of regret.

He sets himself, lets the night unfold around him. In the darkness somewhere, a hand is reaching out, hoping another is reaching back. When Guan Shan looks at He Tian again, body loose in a way that feels like something has left him, he blinks, and nods. A muscle in his jaw jumps. He can feel his shoulders curve inwards. The warm, even stroke of He Tian’s thumb is a metronome he’s struggling to keep up with.

Inside him, a war wages. _He’s different_ , a part of him thinks. And the other: _And how many promises of those can he keep?_

Two things he knows for sure: they can fight a hundred battles together, against one another, until they break themselves bloodied and bruised on each other’s stalwart hearts. Both winners and losers.

But Guan Shan knows, too—taking in the slope of He Tian’s shoulders, the reflection of a city in He Tian’s eyes, the hands that once touched him so cruel and sweet, the lips that knew how to sell eternities—that he could never win the war.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm on [Tumblr](http://agapaic.tumblr.com) and [Twitter](http://twitter.com/bethan0mae).


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